PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman in the No.83 Chevrolet says he never thought he would be in the position he is in.
The Tel Aviv native, who is making his Indianapolis 500 debut next weekend will lead the field to the green after setting a four-lap average of 232.790MPH spoke to Paddock Eye following the Firestone Fast Six.
That’s actually a good one. That’s something symbolic. I didn’t even know that. I want to believe that it’s definitely a big thing. Some people believe in this numbers thing. Some people don’t.
I find it kind of cool from my side, so yeah, as I said, I didn’t expect myself to be here, honestly. I raced with the same number actually last year in WEC, and unfortunately, we didn’t manage to win Lamond. We were really fast. We led most of the race. At that stage I was, like, well, you know, Lamond was so close, but we didn’t get it.
Then when I came to Indy and I took the same number, I’m, like, I have to bring this number up. I have to do it. I have to push it up that people will sigh this number.
It’s the second year with this number, and the fact that the last rookie was in ’83, that means it’s a good coincidence.
We asked Schwartzman about whether his WEC experience will help him in the Indianapolis 500, which will be his first oval INDYCAR race to which he said:
Yeah, for sure. When I was doing Lamond overall I’ve driven a bit more than eight hours. You don’t sleep. In that way when the races are so long, you get sort of this knowledge and ability of being just calm.
You sort of put yourself in autopilot. Just be smooth, take things under control, but you don’t overpush yourself because you can go for so long at your max effort. You have to balance well your energy.
I think in that way endurance racing helped me to get this knowledge, to get this feeling and understanding how to approach races like that. Obviously in a week’s time it’s going to be a new thing for me. So definitely it’s going to be difficult because it’s not only long race, but it’s like it’s my first oval race starting from pole, so there is a lot of things going on.
Again, I just try to use that knowledge to just be calm and as I said, take it easy without rushing things up. Yeah, hopefully we’re going to have a good, strong, fast, competitive car. Who knows? Maybe in the last laps I’m going to be there battling not only for pole position like for today but also for a race win.
Speaking about his team, Schwartzman said:
“Well, unbelievable guys we made it. My first ever Indy 500 pole as a rookie with the rookie team PREMA Racing. I mean overall, I just want to say a big thanks to PREMA and to Chevy for their support and for their work. We’ve done a really good job with progressing the car and honestly now I still can’t believe it. Mentally I’m quite exhausted, I just need to digest this whole thing, that I’m going to be starting on pole for the Indy 500. So yeah, just amazing. Big thanks to all the fans for the support and to everybody who was supporting me and believing in me for all these years.”